Cross Purposes

God? He's in the details.

You've heard it before. You're about to hear it again. God works in
mysterious ways. Two ways: through the towel dispenser in a restaurant
bathroom and through the message inside a Chinese fortune cookie.

That's the setup in Memphian Geoffrey Wood's latest novel, The
God Cookie (WaterBrook Press), which opens with a heated discussion
about the morality of stealing a restaurant saltshaker.

The scene is inside Mr. Wu's Imperial Buffet. At the table are
Parrish, the owner of a coffee shop, and two of his employees, who are
likable enough but just this side of useless as workers. All these guys
are in their mid-20s, and all of them are hopped up on caffeine. But
only one of them, Parrish, gets the gift of revelation when the paper
towels in the men's bathroom at Mr. Wu's comes up empty. Then there's
the message in a fortune cookie, which Parrish takes to be a sign from
the Almighty. The directive: TAKE THE CORNER.

Parrish, who's done some real thinking on the voice of God, does
— the corner across the street from his coffee shop, where he
meets a nurse who keeps her head in a book and an older lady bent on
knitting. What happens?

Parrish picks up a letter off the street. What it contains is
troubling, and what Parrish does throughout the rest of The God
Cookie — in a series of extraordinarily charitable (and
comic) efforts — is try to find the author of that letter. A next
to miraculous task? Not in a narrative as well-meaning as this one.
Caution, though, to readers who enjoyed Wood's debut novel,
Leaper: Here you'll be suspending your disbelief to the breaking
point.

"I have no artistic training. I have no religious training. I have
spent huge chunks of my life not listening to God. Yet, I wrote a book
on a new physical type of prayer that asks God to come near while you
make crosses from broken and found objects. You know what they say
about God's mysterious ways."

That's Memphian Ellen Morris Prewitt, and she's referring to her
how-to guide Making Crosses: A Creative Connection to God
(Paraclete Press), a book that came out last spring, but it's based on
an idea that began, practically to the day, eight years ago.

It was September 11, 2001, and in response to the tragedy of 9/11,
Prewitt gathered up various found objects and items of personal
significance and attached them, without much thought, to a framework in
the shape of a cross.

Prewitt had already been going through her own trying times and
she'd been toying for a while with the possibilities of found objects
glued onto simple frames, but the cross carried with it its own
religious import. It also introduced Prewitt to a surprising source of
religious meditation. She came to think of those crosses she made as a
form of prayer — a physical form of prayer that was both
self-expressive and interactive, with Prewitt doing the asking ("What
am I supposed to do with all these things?") and God doing the
answering.

These days, Prewitt is introducing others to cross-making in
workshops conducted throughout Memphis, but for two decades she made
her living as a lawyer in Jackson, Mississippi. After moving to
Memphis, her focus turned to writing fiction and nonfiction, which paid
off in Prewitt twice winning honorable mentions in Memphis
magazine's fiction contest.

But if Prewitt's crosses were inspired, it was another book by
another Memphian — Sybil MacBeth's Praying in Color
— that inspired the "Active Prayer Series" published by
Paraclete. Making Crosses is part of that series, which views
prayer as a form of doing. Through doing comes understanding — of
self and possibly of God and his mysterious ways.

But understand this: Prewitt's community of cross-makers are not
affiliated with any church or denomination. Instead, the community
supports members' efforts to draw nearer to God — the materials:
castoffs of little to no value, recycled into unexpected, meaningful
ways. Prewitt calls it "sustainability theology."

Interested in trying your hand at making your own cross?

On September 13th, Prewitt will be holding a workshop at First Unity
Church, 9228 Walnut Grove, from 12:30 to 2:30 p.m. Participants are
asked to bring their own keepsakes and found objects. The cost of the
workshop is $25. To register, call the church at 753-1463 or write to
office@unitymemphis.org.
For more on Ellen Morris Prewitt and Making Crosses, go to
makingcrosses.com.